


Fireworks against the Dawn Sky

by Metztlii_K



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, M/M, Mental Disintegration, SM Entertainment - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-15 14:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11233008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metztlii_K/pseuds/Metztlii_K
Summary: "Would you love me even if I am mad?"





	Fireworks against the Dawn Sky

**Author's Note:**

> This contains descriptions of mental illness that may be triggering.

_"Would you love me even if I am mad?"_

 

 

Sehun couldn’t see anything apart from the pristine, white sheet of paper placed in front of him neatly clipped to an open black folder. His fingers tapped away on his thigh under the table, his right hand jerked up to scratch his black hair then rested on the table. The man sitting opposite him nodded encouragingly, lips tightened in a hungry smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Sehun looked down on the paper again, at the sheet that would guarantee him success and fame. The subject of one's wildest dreams.

He was going to become an idol. A K-pop idol.

His fingers were trembling too much for his liking as he inched towards the pen sitting almost too perfectly next to the document. The heavy pen was cool in his warm fingers and hot palm.

_Oh Sehun_

He watched as the nib of the beautiful black and gold pen touched the paper, dark ink sprawling out in an elegant calligraphy of his name.

Today was a quiet day, with an overcast sky. Sehun refused to decipher what that could mean, merely steeled himself and closed the folder, pushing it back towards the man whose grin seemed to widen to an inhumane state of glee. Sehun took a deep breath, and this time, his smile, his excitement, came more easily.

That was it.

His showtime starts now.

 

 

***

 

 

He’s suspected it since he was a child and later confirmed it with help from a psychiatrist. The doctor warned him against it, but Sehun could not resist the temptation of standing on a stage, feeling like the king of the world with millions of people cheering his name. Maybe the loud noises that surrounded him every time his fellow members, brothers, sang had brought it out, or perhaps it was the bright stage lights that hid all the faces from him, but always to be reassured by a sea of glow sticks. His friend, med major, even jokingly wrote that he might develop it in the future, scribbled in messy writing on a white paper he now saw strange colours on. At night, he was always surrounded by sounds and colours too vivid to be a dream. This was the cause of his insomnia but he never admitted it to anyone, merely putting it down as excitement earning him a scolding from their group leader Suho.

 

“Even as the maknae you should calm down a bit, shouldn’t you?” but no one could stay angry at someone with dark eye bags artfully hidden by thick concealer for long, and Suho would try to rock Sehun to sleep like a baby, even though sleep only brought more sound and images.

 

“Dance more, Sehun-ah,” Luhan would always say, gesturing Sehun to stand up even though his pale legs were ready to let him hit the floor. Maybe the more tired he was, the better he would sleep, but Luhan was wrong. Everyone was wrong.

  
Except for Kai.

  
Without the limelight, Kai preferred to be called Jongin, but everyone stuck to his stage name because it was easier to say, and sounded much harsher especially when Kyungsoo yelled it when he was mucking around with Sehun. Sehun noticed that Kyungsoo was the only one able to persuade Jongin into behaving, while Sehun was the only one who could get him to relax and rest when countless hours of practice doesn’t seem to pay off.

“You need peace for it to sink in, hyung,” Sehun would smile and say softly, even though he could barely hear his own voice over the sound of Jongin’s sneakers on the training room, long after he ceased.

Once Jongin finally allowed himself to sleep (“Wake me up in 20 minutes, Sehun,” he would always say, even though once he hit the bed or Sehun’s laps, he would sleep like a dead log), Sehun was still awake, clamping his ears, desperately trying to focus on anything but the fake sounds in his head.

 

 

***

 

 

Maybe he wasn’t careful enough, or on the rare occasion he did manage to sleep (even though Sehun himself would never know because his thoughts only became louder and more persistent in his dreams) he thrashed around, but Jongin noticed.

“You can’t sleep,” it was on a quiet day, with the snow falling lightly in the cool January air, although every time the snow hit the ground he could hear a dull thud resonating in his mind. With no warning, Jongin crept up to him and placed his warm hands over Sehun’s ears. The sound became more solid, and instead of each echo getting softer, they were getting louder and louder and pulsed within Sehun the way his heart raced and pounded after dancing.

“Stop!” he screamed and scrambled away from Jongin. Too late, he tried to regain his composure, but even his own breathing was too loud.

“Sehunnie,” a whisper brought him back to reality. Brown eyes sought answer in his own, but he had none to offer.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” he asked, his thumb brushing away tears that Sehun didn’t realise had fallen. Sehun had grown weaker, that was it. He used to be able to contain himself and hide his fractured mind behind a smooth facade.

“Schizophrenia,” Jongin whispered, but the sound and meaning of the word grew inside Sehun until all he could see was the word, typed up and printed out on a doctor’s report card. Except this time, the card was filled with the word in all different font, becoming increasingly indistinguishable as the ink and words overlapped.

“No, don’t,” Sehun murmured, watching the report card melt back into white and become snow on the ground.

“Sehun, concentrate on my voice,” Jongin whispered.

Jongin brought Sehun out of his nightmare the second time that day. Sehun faked a smile, shaking his head.

“What’s got to you, hyung? Do I really look crazy?”

There were only a few seconds for Sehun to see the puzzled expression on Jongin’s bronzed face before his mind slipped into spraying wild colours on the tanned canvas. Sehun’s ears rang, and he could feel nothing.

On the third time, it took a long kiss to bring him back.

 

 

***

 

 

On the outside, Sehun was the perfect ice prince, former ulzzang whose looks won over the world.

But on the inside, Sehun was crumbling like rocks eroding off a cliff. Three of his most beloved people in the entire world had broken away to fly on their own wings. They had promised to meet each other, but deep down, he knew that once they stepped out of SM with all their belongings and a broken contract, they were out of his life.

His condition worsened to a point where even Jongin was oblivious. Sehun couldn’t blame him, because all of their workloads had increased yet the expectation was the same, if not higher, as when they had 12 to share the burden. On some days, Sehun felt that even the most resilient had half a mind to break free, and he couldn’t blame them at all.

“Sehunnie,” Jongin reached for him one day, but Sehun couldn’t hear him over their recent concert playing over and over in his head. But his mind didn’t decide to focus on the good parts, and instead replayed his mistakes. The one count where he had forgotten the dance move they prepared months for, the one stray note that stood out like blood on snow, the one fan he couldn’t spare enough time to make eye contact with, to silently thank them for coming, loving, supporting. All the mistakes, replaying and replaying on the practise room mirror taunted and scolded Sehun like a vengeful, haunting ghost crying out for justice. At some point, the sounds got louder and he could only helplessly watch the mirrors melt and slowly drizzle down towards the floor near a sneaker.

 

Sehun didn’t know what happened after that, but when he opened his eyes, he was in the hospital with an IV cord out of his arm. For the first time in years, the world around him was peaceful.

“They put a bit of sedative in you so your mind will slow down,” Jongin was sitting on a chair near the bed, his features brighten into a smile when Sehun finally came around.

“What’s this?” Sehun’s head pounded, and it felt like there were bandages around the back of his head.

“You...kind of hit your head when you blacked out, so…” Jongin looked down, his own facade crumbling. The months took their toll on him, and Sehun could count wrinkles that were never there before.

“Jongin,” Sehun slowly reached for him, and their fingers entwined as a compromise for a hug.

“I should have been there and noticed your symptoms,” Jongin hung his head, his lips brushing their fingers.

“It’s fine,” Sehun tried for a smile, but his muscles weren’t responding.

“The sedatives are kicking in again,” Jongin chuckled, and tucked Sehun under the blankets, kissing him goodnight before Sehun’s eyelids became too heavy to keep open any longer.

“...love you, Nini…”

 

 

***

 

 

Sehun didn’t know precisely when the members started to give up on their shared dream.

Maybe it was when Kyungsoo no longer volunteered to cook for them, or when Baekhyun no longer had the energy to sing in his unique pitch as a way of waking everyone up.

Perhaps that time when Jongin’s movements stiffened slightly during a showcase, his usual enthusiasm and passion gone.

Maybe it was Jongdae who finally spoke up and finally did something about being overlooked and underrated, despite his obvious talent and hard work.

Or it was Chanyeol who decided that composing was too much effort, or when Lay finally openly displayed his yearning of going back to his home country to pursue a solo career.

But one thing that Sehun knew for sure was that they were all tired. Tired of each other, tired of being idols, being shaped and sold as desirable mannequins, robots that danced and sang. Minseok’s enlistment was definitely the fire that lit the fuse of the bomb.

The day they disbanded was an overcast day. No rain, no tears. Just tedious farewells and empty promises. Hugs, but that was it.

They walked together to the crossroad in front of the SM town building, arms around each other. Then they parted.

Sehun was sure that what was left of their once enormous fan base would weep, but they would find new things. New people, music, sounds, lights, while Sehun was trapped in his own world, in his past. He would hear his own singing on nights on the same date as their previous concerts, but the background music would always be too loud, and there was no one standing next to him on the stage anymore. Just him, alone, facing a sea of darkness. This time, there wasn’t a single glow stick in sight. No chants from the crowd, the music echoing silently in the vast concert hall.

 

***

 

Sehun knew that it was selfish of him, and he had expected his idol life to be short and explosive like a firework. But he had overdosed on the fame, and now he was paying with his sanity.

During one of his waking moments, he called Jongin for the first time in months.

This wasn’t fair to Jongin because he had already settled down with Soojung and probably had kids already. But Sehun needed support. He needed something that could keep him afloat in the stormy sea that is his own mind.

Trembling fingers tapped his phone, and with a deep breath, Sehun pressed call.

“Hello?”

Sehun nearly dropped his phone. It’s been so long since he heard someone familiar talk. His family had been detached, not that they wanted to. They merely missed out on a few years of Sehun’s life, but to Sehun himself, it felt like his entire existence.  

“Jongin…” he whispered, voice cracking.

“Wait a sec, honey,” Jongin called away from his phone, heard a laughter before asking Sehun, “What’s the matter?”

There was an annoyed tone in his voice, Sehun could sense. His voice also got deeper and was much more different from what Sehun remembered.

 _They were gone_ , Sehun told himself harshly, _they were no more_.

“Sehun?” Jongin asked in a softer voice. Sehun shook his head, then remembered that he was calling.

“Just checking up. I guess you’re still alive,” Sehun’s lisp was long gone, reminding himself of how much he himself changed too.

“Wanna hang out one day?” Jongin asked. Sehun shook his head again.

“I’m quite busy now,” he forced a laugh.

“I see you got a job after being an idol, Hunnie.”

“Yeah I did, Nini.”

“That’s great to see. Maybe one day,” Jongin smiled. They exchanged half-hearted farewells and Sehun ended the call.

That night, all he heard was the laughter and Jongin’s strange way of saying “honey”. The sound merged in Sehun’s ears until it became a cacophony, and he watched honey dripping like tears from a black ceiling.

 

 

***

 

 

It has gotten to a point where reality blurs with his dreams like the period between night and day. Twilight, they call it, when blue blends with yellow in an uncanny way that should not be possible, but somehow happens.

His psychiatrist convinced him to paint his thoughts on a blank canvas, despite Sehun protesting that he lacked the skill to do so.

“Wouldn’t that blur my thoughts and reality even more?” Sehun demanded, but the doctor merely smiled sadly.

The first time Sehun pressed a paintbrush to the canvas, the colour he chose almost made him puke.

The grotesque colour was one of almost dried blood, the type that should be forming a scab but instead ran down the canvas in crimson. Sehun picked up the palette knife and stabbed the canvas.

“Sehun, are you alright?” his mother called. Sehun took a deep breath and gripped his knife tighter.

“I’m fine,” he called back, turning away from the broken painting.

 

It took a week for Sehun to find the colour. Sehun almost dropped the paintbrush when it was the exact colour he wanted.

Hours merged together, and Sehun spent a week without eating or sleeping painting his past.

 

 

***

 

 

“That is..beautiful, Sehun,” his mother’s voice drifted into his mind. Then dissipated like smoke, lost in the wind of countless days of practising through blood, sweat and tears, blowing the present away. The past was where Sehun was truly alive, and where Sehun met his demise.

The condition was getting worse. The only way Sehun could tell that he is in reality was that when he pressed his fingers onto images, they sunk in a little, but do not give. That was the canvas, and only the canvas could tell him the truth.

Sehun can’t even do simple things like walking. He stumbled into imaginary walls and real walls alike, the twisting hallways of the small SM dorm blending with his house.

“Oh Sehun, do you need a drink?”

“Sehun, would you like me to bring you some food?”

“Sehun, should you see your psychiatrist?”

“Sehun...do we need to send you to...special care?”

Sehun sees his mother in blotches of black and white, words leaving her mouth as black butterflies taking flight.

 

 

***

 

 

_No one cared._

_No one cared to visit Sehun._

It didn’t take long for the idea of sending Sehun away to an asylum to plant itself into his mother’s mind, eventually blooming into a venus fly trap. When Sehun heard the news, he snapped his thickest paintbrush.

“Mum...are you giving up on me?”

His words left his mouth in thick strokes of paint, each word destroying the sunlight entering his room, covering up the colours in the room and replacing them with grey, white, black, red, brown, colours of an asylum.

“No, darling, but you have a chance of recovering when you are with professionals,” his mother’s kind smile twisted into a blank canvas: silent, waiting, anticipating.

“Mum, please,” Sehun smeared paint onto his cheek in an attempt to wipe away the tears. His mother’s heart thudded painfully at the beautiful sapphire across his pale cheek. But it was a colour that Sehun could perhaps never see in its true beauty.

She wanted Sehun to see the world again.   

“Please let me on a road trip,” Sehun begged, running an agitated hand through shaggy, black hair, tainting it the same pink he once had. The corners of his mother’s eyes thinned and drooped to the ground like a calligraphy stroke. It terrified Sehun, but he was determined to protect his mother from his own insanity.

“Sure. Several of your bandmates have tried calling you. Out of them, Jongin called the most. He said something about going out somewhere? You should call him back,” his mother handed him a black microphone, an exact clone of the first ever microphone he was given.

“Thanks,” Sehun turned around to touch his painting, feeling his fingers sink into rough cloth and meeting resistance. The asylum around him cleared to a transparent reality over his room, and the mirage of the microphone shimmered to a black iPhone.

His phone buzzed.

Sehun picked up.

 

 

***

 

 

_“Sehun-ssi, you are the maknae of EXO, right?” the interviewer asked. Sehun internally groaned but managed a smile while nodding._

_“Would you mind showing us your aegyo?” she pressed on. Sehun sighed softly, before lifting two index fingers to the side of his face._

_“Sehun?” another voice called, this time masculine. Sehun frowned, feeling something prick his cheeks. Sehun held up two fingers, but instead of seeing his regular and familiar appendages, they were black and gnarled like roots, with red trickling down his index. He lifted his black fingers to feel the side of his cheeks and felt something wet and warm sprouting from a gaping hole. Numbly, Sehun stuck his finger into the hole, just to brush against teeth._

 

“Sehun!” the masculine voice called again, and the interview faded into his distorted room. Extra corners were created where there should only be an edge, and there was a strange stalagmite of silver that extended from the base of his mirror to the other side of the bedroom.

“Sehun-ah,” a sobbing feminine voice called, and Sehun watched a blank canvas in the shape of a woman approaching his bed, her hair haunting her like the demon of despair.

Strong arms gathered him into a warm, solid chest. A familiar scent of cologne invaded his nostrils, reminding him of kisses and dancing and melodic voices singing about promises of staying together forever.

For the first time in months since EXO disbanded, Sehun cried.

 

 

***

 

 

“...”

Except for the purr of the engines, it was silent in the car. After kissing his mother goodbye, Sehun tossed a prepacked duffel bag with contents he couldn't distinguish on to the backseat of Jongin’s Jaguar. The beautiful and sexy car with its convertible hood down allowed the wind to run its hand through Sehun’s ragged black hair, revealing his forehead in a way that reminded him of glamourous days with tubs of hair gel in a strange coloured hair.

 

“I won’t tell you where we’re going now, but once you get there you will know.”

Sehun watched the scenery on his side of the highway blur together into an abstract watercolour gradient of green and olive. He reached out a hand and met no resistance as his whole hand vanished into the artwork.

“Jongin…” Sehun’s voice cracked.

Jongin took the car to the side of the highway, unclasped his and Sehun’s seatbelt before effortlessly pulling Sehun into his lap.

“You lost so much weight, Sehun-ah,” Jongin buried his nose into Sehun’s nape, inhaling the calming subtle and sweet musk Jongin loved to smell even on stage. Sehun’s glazed eyes refocused on the warmth and presence of Jongin.

“Hello, Jongin-ah,” Sehun whispered, the sound of the name ringing in Sehun’s ears like church bells.

“Welcome back, Sehun-ah” Jongin smiled, a genuine and gentle lifting of the corners of his lips that lit up the real world.

 

 

***

 

 

Sehun’s heart pounded when Jongin started to slow down and drive his Jaguar into a quaint countryside driveway. The growl of the engine became louder in his mind as the actual car quieted down.

“Sehun, here,” Jongin said, touching Sehun’s lips gently. Sehun blinked slowly, his eyelids fluttering like butterflies taking flight. The countryside sun revealed the flecks of dark chocolate and caramel in Jongin’s eyes, and Sehun could feel the dead weight on his heart transferring to a choking feeling in his throat.

“My Sehun...you have been so sad,” Jongin reached for Sehun’s cheek, and he leant into the touch.

“Maknae!” a booming voice cut through like a knife, and Sehun’s head automatically whipped around at the familiar summon.

“Joonmyeon!”

Behind his former leader was a man with a beautiful lady in his arms, dressed in white. She giggled as he whispered something into her ear. Sehun watched with barely masked jealousy at the way the man looked at her, but at the same time, it was a look so unguarded and sweet that Sehun had to look away.

“Come on, Baekhyun! You can’t just ignore Sehun when you specifically invited him!” Joonmyeon called to the bridegroom, and the mischievous twinkle returned to the former vocalist’s eyes.

“Oh Sehun!” Baekhyun exclaimed at the same time as another voice, this one with a low undercurrent that frequently complemented Baekhyun in their songs. On screen and off screen, Sehun has never seen two that worked with each other as well as Baekhyun and Chanyeol.

The rest of EXO’s members trickled out of the quaint but big farmhouse to greet Sehun, and with one last sweeping glance at the Yanggu mountains around him, he took in a deep breath of sweet country air.

Slowly, but surely, the corners of his own lips lifted.

 

 

***

 

 

The reception of the ceremony was surprisingly quiet, with the vocal line of EXO singing for the ceremony. They even managed to video call Zitao, Yixing and Yifan, and promised to record the ceremony for a busy actor Luhan.

Chanyeol on the piano played the piece Baekhyun decided, but with a twist that left Baekhyun torn between storming over and slapping Chanyeol with the music or walking up to his waiting bride without a detour. Being the impulsive person he is, he took a detour towards Chanyeol, yanked him off the piano stool and strutted back towards his wife singing the actual song. His wife laughed, the sound pleasant but echoing in Sehun's mind. 

Jongin joined in with the laughter, all while gripping Sehun’s hand firmly. Sehun miraculously managed a chuckle and was surprised at himself.

“Smile more, Sehun-ah” Jongdae sitting on the other side of him whispered, and he automatically deferred to a playful pout. Jongdae laughed at how nothing has changed.

Sehun hasn’t forced himself to concentrate on the real world for so long that he could feel a migraine coming by the time Baekhyun and his wife got ready to sign the papers. He tightened his hold on Jongin’s hand, and Jongin immediately understood, leading him outside the house.

“How are you feeling?” The genuinity in Jongin’s eyes pricked Sehun’s heart like a piece of broken glass, with the sound of knives scraping concrete whispering “Soojung” twisting the shard.

Maybe Jongin only offered to look after Sehun the way someone would willingly look after a patient with a terminal illness; with the overhanging knowledge that the burden will soon be lifted, and the action was done out of hope to be virtuous.

Sehun winced, clutching his head. Images and sounds rushed back into his head like water rushing from a broken dam.

A line from Baekhyun’s designated song boomed from massive speakers shaped like mountains. Yanggu vanished into Tokyo Dome, which then blurred horribly into lonely nights staring at the ceiling of the trainee’s dorm.

A warm touch, a calling, a kiss.

But Sehun was lost in his own shattered mind.

 

 

***

 

On the final night, Jongin took Sehun to a beautiful dinner on Namsan Tower.

“I divorced Soojung.”

Sehun’s utensils clattered loudly on the plate. A trembling hand knocked the wine glass over, spilling ruby onto the alabaster cloth. The view of Seoul skylights blurred into veins, pulsing with light every time the heart of the city pumped.

“No..no...NO!”

Sehun’s chest heaved, his mind manipulating the spilt wine into one of the images he spent so long painting in his spare time.

There was Soojung, looking beautiful in a wedding dress of lace and white doves standing at the altar with a man dressed impeccably in a suit as dark as the night sky. She looked at him with so much love in her eyes it broke Sehun’s heart because he was not up there.

He should have been the one in Soojung’s place dressed in a white suit staring into Jongin’s eyes.

But Sehun had branded the reality of Soojung and Jongin’s union so deeply into his mind that it had become the only piece of truth he was sure of. Now, Sehun’s world had been yanked from under his feet, disintegrated with 3 simple words.

“Why would you do that?”

Jongin’s eyes, however sad, never turned into the monstrous feature of his own mother. His eyes stayed normal, puppy-like and deep.

“My heart had already been stolen by someone else.”

Sehun’s hyperventilation stopped.

The waiter hurrying over moved in quicksand as the wine dripped off the table like honey.

“You are so cruel...you…”

Grabbing a few bills, Jongin pulled Sehun up and whisked him away.

 

 

***

 

 

“Why?”

Tears blurred Sehun’s vision, snot clogging his airway. But he ignored it all

“Because it was you the whole time.”

Sehun hears the purr of engines 40 floors below, mixed with the roar of a phantom crowd.

“But…”

“I didn’t realise. I made a stupid mistake that I intend to fix.”

Sehun cast his eyes down, watching blotches of mercury solidify into shards of broken mirror littering the floor. Every step caused pain.

“I will be with you until you’re ok. Schizophrenia is curable, you know?” Jongin’s arms wrapped around Sehun as the sharp ends of the glass shards smoothed into the grey marble tiles. The roaring in Sehun’s ears quieted down into a low murmur, but Sehun still pulled himself free, bracing as every hallucination came back.

“I won’t trade a healthy, normal person’s happiness for mine,” Sehun gasped in pain with every step on the broken shards but made it onto the smooth sheets of the hotel bed.

“ _You_ are worthy of happiness,” Sehun flinched at the harshness in Jongin’s tone, the anger twisting Jongin’s shadow on the wall into something indistinguishable. Sehun whimpered and when Jongin trapped Sehun in his embrace, Sehun didn’t try to wiggle free.

“I’m broken-”

Sehun was silenced with an urgent but gentle kiss.

“Not broken, but beautiful.”

 

Every breath shared was a whisper of love, every touch a worship as clever fingers danced up milky thighs and traced the outline of hard-earned muscles.

“You,” full lips touched Sehun’s eyelids and wet lashes, kissing away tears.

“Are,” warm, tanned skin melted the remaining broken shards on the bed, revealing white sheets the colour of a perfect wedding.

“Beautiful,” fingers eased their way into Sehun as the other warm hand stroked him, distracting him from the pain of being stretched.

“Jongin,” Sehun whined, nose wrinkling. If Jongin’s smile was beautiful, his laugh was blinding, as bright as the sun. With the hotel light casting a halo around Jongin’s naked figure, Sehun could see rays of the light of life radiating from Jongin’s being.

“I don’t know…” Sehun blushed, fingers gripping the bedsheets tightly. Jongin kissed Sehun’s cheek lightly just as his fingers twisted deliciously, pulling a dirty sound Sehun himself didn’t know he was capable of.

“Follow me,” Jongin whispered into the forehead kiss, and never once did they take their eyes off each other.

 

After the climax, Jongin had slumped onto Sehun’s bony chest, forcing a whine from the younger. Jongin chuckled before rolling off and closed the lights. It didn’t take long for sleep to drag him down into its oblivious currents.

Sehun waited for it to hit. There was no way the ceiling wouldn’t drip with the black, bitter tar. It wouldn’t take long for the wedding bells to ring again.

But there was nothing.

For the first time in a very long time, Sehun was living in the moment. In reality.

Sehun cried himself to sleep. On tears of happiness.

 

***

 

Sehun couldn’t see anything apart from the pristine white walls of the room. Sunlight spiked through the gaps in the blinds, making dust particles dance. Jongin stirred gently with every breath, chest moving in a steady rhythm synchronised with his constant heartbeat.

It wouldn’t be long before Sehun’s mind slips into spraying wild colours on the white walls, or when screams of a large crowd filled up his brain. But before that, Sehun allowed himself to enjoy reality, a treat often hard to come by.

“I love you, Jongin.”

A broken shard materialised in Sehun’s hand, blood dripping onto the white sheets and spraying on Sehun’s skin. His other arm was beginning to feel numb already as eternal sleep threatens to take him under.

“Sorry.”

 

***

 

Sehun couldn’t see anything apart from the pristine, white sheet of paper placed in front of him neatly clipped to an open black folder. His fingers tapped away on his thigh under the table, his right hand jerked up to scratch his black hair then rested on the table. The man sitting opposite him nodded encouragingly, lips tightened in a hungry smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Sehun looked down on the paper again, at the sheet that would guarantee him success and fame. The subject of one's wildest dreams.

He was going to become an idol. A K-pop idol.

His fingers were trembling too much for his liking as he inched towards the pen sitting almost too perfectly next to the document. The heavy pen was cool in his warm fingers and hot palm.

_Oh Sehun_

He watched as the nib of the beautiful black and gold pen touched the paper, dark ink sprawling out in an elegant calligraphy of his name.

Today was a beautiful day, the sun blessing everything it could reach. Sehun itched to return to the warm embrace of the sun, far away from the air-conditioned room of SM.

“No, sorry. I don’t want to do this anymore.” Sehun smiled, a gesture that came easily ever since his schizophrenia was cured. It took a lot of patience and love from a certain individual central to his life, someone he would not give up even for his childhood dreams.

“Please reconsider. You will make it very big one day,” the man’s lips thinned, snarling out the words in desperation and hunger.

But Sehun didn’t want fame. He only wanted _him_.

“No, sorry. I’m sure you will come across more talented people,” Sehun ripped up the contract and strolled out of the room, a bounce in every step.

 

“You DECLINED?”

Sehun jumped when the voice boomed from the kitchen. He laughed easily as the sound bounced off the walls and faded into nothing.

“Yeah, I did.” Sehun ran towards outstretched hands, belonging to an incredulous individual with a golden tan, beautiful puppy-brown eyes and a beautiful smile.

“I thought it was everything you’ve ever wanted!” Jongin gasped, letting Sehun go to untie his apron before pulling the younger into a tighter embrace. Sehun giggled as the apron landed silently on the floor.

“ _You_ are everything I’ve ever wanted.”

 

 

_"You are not mad, you are perfect."_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Longest story I've written in one (?) sitting. Whew.  
> I'm on twitter as @_MetZt_K. Follow for posts about EXO's comebacku~ (jkjk)


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